11 Months Old: She’s on the move, and I’m…well, tired.

Leah is 11 months old today!

This past month has been an adventure, for sure.  She has just blossomed – so many developments in such a short period of time!  It’s amazing how quickly it all happens, and how fast the little person we brought home from the hospital has become a little girl.  She’s such a joy.

If I could sum up the past month in one word, that word would have to be “curious.”  She is into everything – and I do mean everything – and it makes my days pretty interesting.  There are days when I feel like a broken record: “No, Leah….no ma’am.  NO!  Mommy said no.  No.  No.  No.”  On and on.  I feel bad about it lots of times, because I feel like I’m mean and raining on her parade all the time…but then I think about what would happen to her and to my house if I didn’t do it, and I don’t feel guilty anymore.  She can be quite the hurricane when she wants to be.  There have been days when I am certain that she’s testing her limits, reaching over and over and over for the same thing, even after I’ve told her no.  (She gets her little hand popped sometimes….and that doesn’t do much for Mommy’s guilt.)  Most days, though, I really think she’s just curious about the world around her; I don’t think she’s trying to be disobedient, but rather is just fascinated by all of the things she has never been able to get to before.

With her curiosity and the necessary discipline, though, comes……temper tantrums.  At least once a day she has a little bitty meltdown, upset with me for taking something from her or not letting her get to something that interests her.  She’ll shriek and cry and march away from me.  It doesn’t last long, but she makes it clear that she’s not happy with me.  I know this is a sign of things to come…especially if she’s anything like her mama.  For right now, though, I kind of think her little tantrums are funny.  It’s funny to see her get so passionate about something so minor.

She loves to be on the move.  There are whole days sometimes when she doesn’t play with her toys at all, but just picks up one thing at a time and walks around with it.  She picks a route in the family room and kitchen and walks that same route over and over and over.  Back and forth, round and round.  She just likes to walk.  She has become quite the pro, too, falling rarely and catching herself when she stumbles.  She can walk over and around things that I’m sure are going to trip her.  Sometimes she does fall, though, and gets little booboos.  Her poor face….sometimes after a busy day of walking around and around and around, she looks a little rough.

Her favorite things to play with are, as expected, not her toys.  She loves to suck on a washcloth in the bathtub (and is quite displeased with me if I don’t give her the one I’m using to wash her face).  She totes coasters around all the time.  She has her own remote controls and cell phone, but she likes ours better.  She’s been known to tote one of my shoes around for awhile, and is thrilled when I open up the cabinet with the plastic bowls and let her play in the kitchen.

She’s getting better and better at feeding herself.  As she does so, I’m relaxing more and more about it; I’m not nearly as scared to give her chunks of food as I was when she first started, simply because I’m more confident now that she can handle it.  She does make quite a mess of herself in the process, though.  That’s to be expected.  Some of that is probably because she has 6 teeth – count ‘em…..6!

We also have a new favorite, um….well, I don’t know what you’d call him.  She loves Elmo.  Loves. Him.  She thoroughly enjoyed playing with the Encore Elmo in WalMart the other day, but didn’t understand me when I explained that he was $60 and he wouldn’t be coming home with us.  She does enjoy seeing him every day on Sesame Street, though.  She dances with him when he sings, and laughs with him when he laughs.  She likes him almost as much as Ellen.

I’m sure there are things I’m forgetting, but I need to get upstairs to get her up from her nap. 

Oh, one other thing?  We’ve got baby gates at the foot of the stairs (because SHE CAN CLIMB THEM!) and at the door of her room (because we don’t want to wake up to the distinct sound of her coming less-than-gracefully down the stairs).  Big stuff ahead, including her BIRTHDAY.  Can you believe it?

Oh….and one more other thing?  I’m back in some of my pre-prego pants that I was truly convinced that I would never get on again.  I think the reason for that is related to the reason I couldn’t get into them in the first place.  I think I’m burning major calories chasing her around.  That counts as exercise, right?  I’ll take it.